Suicide bomb linked to al-qaeda kills score of Iran’s elite Guard

A suicide bombing targeting a bus carrying personnel of Iran’s elite paramilitary Revolutionary Guard force has killed at least 27 people and wounded 13 in the country’s south-east.

An al-qaeda-linked Sunni extremist group operating across the border in Pakistan has reportedly claimed yesterday’s assault.

The bombing came on the same day as a Us-led conference in Warsaw was to include discussions on what America describes as Iran’s malign influence across the wider Middle East.

It also comes two days after Iran marked the 40th anniversary of its 1979 Islamic Revolution and four decades of tense relations with the West.

Iran’s foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif directly linked the meeting to the attack.

“Is it no coincidence that Iran is hit by terror on the very day that #Warsawcircus begins?” Mr Zarif wrote on Twitter. “Especially when cohorts of same terrorists cheer it from Warsaw streets & support it with [Twitter] bots?”

The state-run IRNA news agency reported the attack on the Guard in Iran’s Sistan and Baluchistan province.

The province, which lies on a major opium trafficking route, has seen occasional clashes between Iranian forces and Baluch separatists, as well as drug traffickers.

The Guard is a major economic and military power in Iran, answerable only to the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The group later issued a statement saying a vehicle loaded with explosives targeted a bus carrying border guards affiliated with its force.

While Iran has been enmeshed in the wars engulfing Syria and neighbouring Iraq, it has largely avoided the bloodshed plaguing the region.

In 2009, more than 40 people, including six Guard commanders, were killed in a suicide attack by Sunni extremists in Sistan and Baluchistan province. Jundallah – a Sunni extremist group still active in the region on Iran’s border with Pakistan – claimed responsibility for that attack.

More recently, another Sunni extremist group known as Jaish al-adl linked to al-qaeda kidnapped 11 Iranian border guards in October. Five later were returned to Iran and six remained held.

Both official and semiofficial Iranian media outlets blamed yesterday’s bombing on Jaish al-adl or the “Army of Justice”, saying the group had claimed the attack.

That group formed in 2012 and drew some militants from Jundallah. Iran has long suspected Saudi Arabia of supporting the militants.